Sins & Shadows

4 Murder, Morals, Motive

“AS SIMPLE AS THAT FOR YOU?” DUNNE SAID, TOUCHING THE FRAGRANT petals. “Transformation is not enough? An evil turned to harmless beauty, made benign—”

“You want me to take the damn case, don’t lecture me on my morals,” Sylvie said. “They killed Suarez. They’ll be after me. Yeah, it’s pretty simple. Kill or be killed.”

“But she’s harmless now,” he said. He frowned, but the expression was more puzzled than disapproving. “It’s one thing to kill in self-defense or in protection of another. To kill once there is no pressing need—”

“If your lover is dead, or alive but tortured,” Sylvie said, “will you dare tell me you won’t exact his pain on their hides?”

As he quailed, she pressed her advantage. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, tit for tat; it’s the oldest, simplest justice there is. Or is that different from being Justice with a capital J? Are you a kindlier, gentler justice?”

He closed his fingers, and the orchid vanished. Sylvie caught the protest in her throat. “You let her go?”

“No,” he said. “Put her elsewhere.” His eyes were tired, and he rubbed at them with the heels of both hands, the face of a man with a dilemma. “Is this going to work? I need you to think—you’re almost as bad as the sisters.”

“Fuck you,” Sylvie snapped. “I’m smarter than your minions.” She was shaking, cold all the way to her bones at what she had tried to do. She didn’t kill people. Even if they were flowers. She clung to that thought, but she had always responded to fear with rage. Fear paralyzed you. Rage kept you moving.

“How many others could you identify clearly from your memories? The girl passed close to you—you saw her hair, heard her laugh, saw her move, smelled her perfume and sweat. The others? If you destroyed her, their identification becomes harder.”

“Your sisters could follow her scent back, right?” Sylvie said.

“Oh, they could have followed it anywhere. On anyone she’d been near. Like her classmates, her teachers, the people in her dormitory, and those she stood next to on slow elevators. How many throats would you see the sisters hunt?” His eyes were steady on hers.

Sudden sickness welled in Sylvie’s throat; she turned from his gaze.

“This way, you have a choice. We can still ask her questions. Identify the others the simplest way.”

“Kinda hard to ask a flower questions,” Sylvie said, trying not to let him see how shaken she was. “All that language of flowers crap aside.”

“Don’t be difficult,” he said. “I’ll change her back first, of course.”

“Of course,” she said. No big deal. Transformation. Real transformation of matter. Most transformations were only a matter of rearranging mass. Werewolves were big because men were bigger than wolves. Turning a person into a toad would only result in a toad the size of a man. To turn a woman into a single, delicate orchid—to change her back at will—that required destruction and creation of mass. Destruction was a human skill, possible for a juiced-up sorcerer. Creation—wasn’t.

He took her arm again, and she yanked away. “No. We are not traveling that way again.”

Dunne’s face darkened. “We don’t have a lot of time—”

“Enough for you to lecture me on ethics. Enough for you to prove your skills. I think we have enough time to take a car wherever we go next.” She met his eyes, refused to back down. He could force the issue, she supposed. But he was weak, too. He was desperate, and he needed Sylvie.

“Fine,” he said. He gestured in a manner that looked a lot less like a spell trigger than a man throwing his hands up in exasperation. With the sudden rearrangement Sylvie was beginning to get used to, her truck appeared in the parking lot nearby, its battered and clawed red hood a familiar beacon.

“Great,” she said, her poise restored with its appearance. The clawed hood reminded her she’d survived a lot more intrinsically malevolent creatures than Dunne was turning out to be. “But tell me this. Where are we going?”

“To look for him,” Dunne said. Bewildered panic entered his eyes again.

Sylvie found a bench and sat on it, noticing campus security showing up more and more in her line of sight, blooming like fungus after a rain. Watching Dunne. Not approaching him. Just watching.

“Everyone’s looking for him. Sit down, Dunne, and let’s do this right. You accused me of not thinking, so let’s think. Where was he the last time you saw him? When exactly was that?”

“I’ve told the cops that,” Dunne said.

“Look, what do you suggest I do?” Sylvie said. “Wave a wand? I’m no witch. I am what you see, what my reputation declares me: an inquisitive bitch with a gun. I suppose I could wander the streets like your mindless cops, calling his name like he was a lost cat. . . .”

The police reports appeared in her lap. He slumped forward, head in his hands. “That’s efficient,” she said.

She flipped through the first report. Not local, these boys. Chicago. She frowned. She hated Chicago—all that concrete, those looming high-rise buildings, and the poor man’s ocean. Couldn’t hold a candle to the tropics. She found the Polaroid again of Brandon moving away from the camera’s eye.

“That’s the most recent one,” Dunne said, his voice rough. “It was taken the night he was abducted. Two weeks ago.”

Sylvie noted the cream-and-green sweater, the nice watch, the glittering gems in his ears. “Is he wealthy?”

“Yes,” Dunne said. “But it’s not a kidnapping.”

Yes, Sylvie thought. Of course he’d be wealthy. If you’re the play toy of a god, why not be rich. “Any vengeful exes?”

“I checked them out,” he said, raising his head to meet her eyes. “Thoroughly.”

“They still alive?” she asked.

“Of course,” Dunne said, offended. “I’m not a killer.”

“No, but your pets are,” Sylvie said. “No tricky technicalities here. You didn’t kill them. Did the sisters?”

“No,” he growled, for one moment sounding uncannily like the creatures he commanded.

Sylvie shut up, self-preservation kicking in. She flipped the picture facedown, turned it faceup, trying to restore her first impression of Brandon Wolf.

Delectable.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about opportunists, killing for money or sex, feeding some dark fetish she’d never even imagined.

Dunne said, in echo of her thoughts, “The FBI thinks there are approximately twenty known serial killers working, and assumes there may be up to three hundred working the country unnoticed. There are more than that, but the odds are still against one of them having taken Bran, especially when you consider that Bran is more aware than most of the evils of this world. Besides, I told you. He’s not dead.” He snagged the photograph from her, looked down at it.

“You’d—feel it?” Sylvie asked, unable to keep the skepticism from her voice. “Like something out of a romance novel? Kindred souls and all that rot? You were a cop, Dunne, you know how full of shit that is. People die, and it’s an ugly surprise to their loved ones, each and every time.”

“I’d know,” he repeated. “I’m not human. I am a god.”

“Who once worked as a cop,” Sylvie said, forcing gentleness into her tone, turning the acid to humor. “Were things slow on the god front—had to moonlight?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes. “Bran—” he whispered.

Without fanfare, the skies clouded over and began to rain, a sudden Miami downpour that turned the air silver and thick with water. Sylvie grabbed the police report and bolted to her truck.

He appeared in the seat next to her, the passenger door still locked, and she said, “All right. All right.”

He seemed very close to shattering, and, god or not, he had power. She didn’t want to be at ground zero if he blew. She leaned back against her seat, let rainwater trickle down her face, and thought. Two weeks missing, no ransom, no clues. Conventional wisdom argued that Brandon Wolf was dead.

But then, Sylvie thought, stealing another glimpse at Kevin Dunne, this was not a conventional situation. There was another alternative; Brandon Wolf might have fled. Her searching could jeopardize some exotic occult protection the young man had found—but she wasn’t sure she believed it.

Dunne, despite his power, despite his minions, despite everything, kept defaulting back in her mind to Nice Guy. It made her uneasy.

She started her truck, tucking the rain-spattered police reports in the door pocket, and headed for Miami International. Chicago, huh. At least it would take her out of the satanists’ immediate reach.

“Hey, Dunne, don’t suppose you can magic me up a passport and a credit card?”

He blinked. “Okay.” Then her entire purse was on the seat beside her; she rummaged through it with one hand, identifying things by feel: too-thin wallet, cell phone, ID, spare bullets. The bullets made her pause, thinking of the latest threat she’d faced.

“The sisters are on their own?” she asked. “We left them there.”

“They’ll be fine,” he said.

“I’m not worried about them,” Sylvie said. “I’m worried about the people around them if you’re not there to snap their leash.”

He shrugged. “They’ll be looking for Bran mostly.”

“Mostly,” she muttered. But there was nothing she could do about it now. “Tell me what happened the night Bran disappeared.”

“We were at a friend’s party. Something came up, and I had to go—”

“Something like the Bat-Signal?” Sylvie interrupted.

“Something like that, yes,” Dunne said, evenly. “But Bran wanted to stay, which was fine by me. He’s too tenderhearted to watch me work.” He leaned his head against the window, fell silent. Sylvie glanced over, watched the pain surge and fade on his open face.

“It took a while,” he continued, after a moment in which the only sound was the sweeping thump of the wipers fighting the rain. “I was a little surprised when I got home and Bran wasn’t back before me—we came home at dawn.”

“We?”

“The sisters and I,” he said. “Mostly they live in our backyard.”

“Charming,” she said. “Wonder what they do for property values in the neighborhood.” He shot her a quelling look. “You weren’t worried about his absence?” she prompted.

A muscle jumped in his jaw as if she’d assigned blame. “No.” Guilt laced his voice, then morphed into irritation. “He’s my lover, not a child. He has a life of his own. He’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. And I was . . . tired. To be the god, to enact justice—”

“It tires you out?” Sylvie asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

“No,” he said. “Containing my power so that I don’t affect the whole world is tiring. It’s like walking. A fit man can walk forever. But a fit man forced to stand on one leg and hop—it takes effort. It’s far easier to be what you are than to fight it. But the consequences of a god on the mortal plane . . . Well, you’re seeing some of them, aren’t you? My concentration is going.”

The traffic up ahead crawled; police cars, lights strobing, blocked three of the four lanes, funneling all the traffic to one lane. “Like that?” she said. “Or do you suppose they’re doing a midday sobriety checkpoint?”

“Shit,” he muttered. There was the little hiccup of the world shifting, and the bottleneck was in her rearview mirror.

“So you went to bed,” Sylvie said, plowing ahead, shuddering reflexively. “And you weren’t worried.”

“Bran and Tish are close,” he said. “I assumed he stayed over to help her clean up. He’s done it before.”

“Tish?”

“Tish Carmichael,” he said. “It was her party. She’s a dancer. Ballet.”

Sylvie took her eyes from the road again to assess his mood. After all, with a self-proclaimed god in her truck, she probably didn’t have to worry about car accidents. He sounded more relaxed, as if he found the tradition of question and answer soothing, no matter that he was the one answering the questions.

“What kind of party was it?” she asked.

She had startled him; she saw it in his eyes. Outside, the rain began to slacken. “What?”

“What kind of party? A celebration of something. New job. New boyfriend. Birthday. Or was it just a party for the sake of it—a ‘hey, it’s Wednesday’ kind of thing? C’mon, Dunne, you know what I’m getting at.”

“Tish throws parties all the time. She’s sociable.”

“So not a collection of close friends attending, then. Not an exclusive list. Were there strangers crashing?”

“Always are,” Dunne said, frowning. “but I checked them out. I would have felt anyone powerful enough—”

“You keep saying what you would have felt. But tell me this—what were you feeling when Bran disappeared? If you didn’t feel that, then I don’t see—”

“I did,” he said.

“But you weren’t worried when he wasn’t home. Something worried you enough to check out the strangers at the party, but you feel something when your boyfriend disappears and you aren’t worried. You go to bed.”

“It was so quick,” he said, his voice rough. “I was in the middle of a gang fight, and I was trying hard not to let the sisters go, trying to keep the battlefield confined, the witnesses to none. It was just a touch. It was just . . . I felt startled . . . and there was no reason. It was just a moment; he wasn’t hurt or scared. Just surprised.”

Sylvie fell silent. “You left the party. The kidnapper could have come later.”

“Yes,” Dunne admitted.

“You were suspicious of strangers earlier. Why?”

“Bran doesn’t like strangers,” he said, something in his tone withdrawing.

A lie, she thought. Clients all had to lie about something. Was it Dunne who didn’t like strangers? Or was it even simpler than that? Bran stayed out overnight often enough that Dunne wasn’t concerned. Maybe he’d been having an affair, and Dunne had caught on. Only a fool cuckolded a sorcerer. There probably weren’t words for anyone brazen enough to cuckold a god.

The road curved into the entrance to the airport, and she sighed. She’d learned the hard way there was no point pushing at a lie a client told her; she had to come at it from a different angle, and she was out of time.

He touched her arm, tense with the pressure she was putting on the steering wheel. “What are you going to do?”

“Talk to Tish,” Sylvie said, raising her hand to stifle his protest. “I know, I know, the cops talked to her already.”

“She doesn’t know anything. About me,” Dunne said. “She thinks I’m human.”

“So don’t do anything weird while I’m talking to her.”

“I’m not going with you,” he said. “I’m going to keep searching. I have to.”

She nodded, oddly relieved that she wouldn’t have him lurking behind her. He handed her a plane ticket. “There’s a flight in twenty minutes,” he said.

“Of course there is,” she muttered. She pulled into the parking lot, and a guard came over to inspect her truck. “Fuck,” she said. “My gun. Can you do something about that?”

The guard turned on his heel and went back the way he had come. Sylvie took her gun from her waist holster, and said, “Can you Jedi mindtrick the metal detectors?”

Dunne touched the gun in her hand, and it changed in her grasp, felt aware and warm. She twitched but controlled the instinct to drop it. She had been far too careless with it once today. “What did you do?”

“It will scan as flesh, as your own body,” he said, “and appear part of you while you wear it.”

“You turned my gun to meat?” Her voice soared, a little panicky, belatedly realizing how much comfort she took from the weapon.

“It’s still a gun,” he said. “Try not to kill anyone. You’re under my aegis, and it’s embarrassing.”